Falling in the General Direction of Up

I witnessed something I haven't seen in a really long time. Maybe never. I witnessed a breathtaking performance of (very) young musicians playing 45 minutes of jazz at the Chemanius Jazz Fest last weekend. The Kenton Dick Quartet.  Photo Credit: © 2016 Cole Thompson You don't know what breathtaking really means until you find yourself holding your breath until the very last note then letting it out in a gush. Their performance wasn't only mind blowing to watch - I mean, the ease by which these young musicians played their music - much of it original compositions - was spectacular; but it also inspired me to write this poem-ish piece: Jazz is about tension.  The litany of disconnected, discordant notes,  Beats and grooves,  Skipping errantly and recklessly along; Like a runaway train,  Careening around the bend, Daring to launch itself off the rails. All seemingly impossible and unresolvable.  And then;  Sudde...

Because the Full Moon wasn't finished with me yet... On the heels of my sweet encounter with  Frederick , I'm sitting in marina park listening to Time Well Wasted - the final act of Nautical Days.  I'm chair dancing and helping Kathleen keep an eye on her gang of grandchildren.  Mom is one of the singers in the band.  Half way through the set, I lean over and laugh, pointing to the stage.  "There's always that one guy!"     Kathleen turns her head to where I'm pointing - to that guy, dancing like a crazy person and loudly encouraging the audience to join him.   Fast forward.  The music is over, the fireworks have begun, Kathleen and her family have left the park, and I've walked to the far side of the marina.  People are perched on the rocks lining the water and I was not standing there 2 minutes before I heard someone run up behind me, exuberantly addressing the gentleman to my right.   "Is it...

You know...if no guy will ask you out, sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands.   To be fair, I didn't go cruising for guys, but lo and behold, I found me one.   It's the Monday of the August long weekend and I decided I needed a tiny little patch of real estate next to the water.  I opted to break routine and head for fresh water instead of salt.  I wanted to park my lawn chair, read my book, and have some restorative quiet time and headed to the Puntledge River.   Yeah...not so much.  The parking lot and all roads leading to and from the river were full.  That's OK - I had a Plan B. I decided to hit the inland highway to Qualicum.  The tide was out and there would be plenty of real estate there for me.  I took the cut at Powerhouse Road and was (I thought) going to hook up with Cumberland Road.  Where Powerhouse Road meets Lake Trail Road I stopped before turning right and as I did, there was an ol...

Guys are perplexed concerning some of us women's penchant for sayings.  I have a few of them around my house.  "You are loved like crazy" is the first one you'll see when  you walk into my place.  "Love conquers all" is another.  And "Hope" has made an appearance from room to room.  A male friend walked into my house one day and by the time he reached the couch he said, "Your place is so girly. There's flowers and sayings everywhere."  Well - I'm a girl so...yeah.  Live with it.  My friend Heather has a few sayings in her house too.  Her friend Chris looked at the word "Be" that was displayed on her shelf and queried "Why do you need to have words on your shelf? What does that mean?  Be."  We both looked at him with pity in our eyes.  I don't know about Heather but I felt I had to summon up way too much patience to explain the obvious to this Neanderthal. "Because, sometimes you need to be reminde...

I've had a hard time writing anything lately. My head has been full of a lot of hard things that I've been trying to figure out. The hope is that once I've figured them out I can find a way to make peace with them and/or figure out what my strategy will be going forward. So - while all these things have been swirling around in my head - I've found this big fat writers block standing in the way.  Mmm...maybe it's not so much a writers block...it's more like a big ole pile 'o' confusion and rubble blocking the path to my writing.  I counted and I have 15 half written blogs in my draft folder, so clearly I have the will to write.  There are things I want to express but just can't seem to bring to completion in my brain. It's like trying to walk north on Albert Street after the Riders won the 2013 Grey Cup when the entire sea of green is walking south.  You can't get where you want to go - at least not quickly.  And while I'm not being jostl...